A Novel Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Algorithm Based on the Maximum Eigenvalue

In order to overcome the disadvantages of the traditional spectrum sensing methods in Cognitive Radio (CR), a novel cooperative sensing algorithm based on the maximum eigenvalue and average energy of the received signal covariance matrix is presented in this paper. The proposed algorithm exploits the ratio of the Maximum Eigenvalue to Energy Detection (ME-ED) to determine whether the Primary User (PU) is present or not. Through the theoretical analysis, ME-ED scheme can work well without the knowledge of the PU signal and the noise power. In addition, simulations show ME-ED is not sensitive to noise uncertainty, and can obtain the optimal sensing performance and the strongest robustness under the noise uncertainty compared to MED and ED.